For the first time since the second world war, Germany's foreign policy is distinctly at odds with America's

UNTIL recently, Germany was one of the United States's best friends. The Americans could rely on its enthusiastic moral, if not military, support in most global matters. Within hours of the terrorist attacks on the United States a year ago, Gerhard Schröder, Germany's chancellor, was among the first to pledge his “unlimited solidarity”, describing the event as “a declaration of war against the entire civilised world”. But now he has categorically rejected any German support for an American-led attack on Iraq, even if backed by a United Nations mandate. The relationship that has been the cornerstone of German foreign policy since the second world war is under severe strain. Though several European governments feel much the same towards Mr Bush's policy, Germany's has gone furthest out on a limb.

What has happened? Over his four years as chancellor, Mr Schröder has presided over democratic Germany's coming of age in foreign affairs. He courageously led his country into its first armed conflict (in Kosovo) since the second world war, then into its first war outside Europe (in Afghanistan), on both occasions risking his government's downfall. “The days when Germany could stand timidly on the sidelines, declining to participate in foreign military missions, are irrevocably over,” the chancellor declared after last September 11th.

Until now, Mr Schröder has always been very firm that Germany would never act on its own. But suddenly he is talking of a new “German way” in foreign policy, with echoes—alarming to some—of Germany's Sonderweg (special way) in the 1930s. This worries quite a few of Germany's friends. It is not just what Mr Schröder has said about the United States and Iraq, but also the way he has expressed it. Germany, he declared, rejected any American military “adventures” in Iraq. While willing to help press Saddam Hussein into letting UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq, Germany was not prepared “to play around” with war.

Edmund Stoiber, the conservative challenger for chancellor, has been more nuanced, accusing his rival of sacrificing Germany's ties with its most important partner for electoral gain. Mr Schröder's Social Democrats are running neck-and-neck against the Christian Democrats in the run-up to the general election on September 22nd. Every vote counts. Whereas a large majority of Germans backed the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after September 11th, most, especially those on the left, are dead against one with Iraq. At campaign rallies, Mr Schröder and Joschka Fischer, his Green foreign minister, always get the loudest cheer for their stand on this issue of “war and peace”.

Germans are not anti-American. They admire many facets of American life, share most basic values, and generally regard the United States as their key ally. But Mr Bush's administration is not getting a good German press. The list of gripes is long: many Germans deplore Mr Bush's hostility to the International Criminal Court; his attitude to the environment; the death penalty; unfettered American support for Israel against the Palestinians; genetically modified foods; farm subsidies; the Americans' apparently growing unilateralism; and now its policy on Iraq. At home it does Mr Schröder no harm to be bravely standing up to the perceived American bully.

Mr Schröder and many other Germans think an attack on Saddam Hussein would be an error

It would be wrong to dismiss his stance as pure vote-catching. He and many other Germans think an attack on Saddam Hussein would be an error. Earlier this month Mr Schröder told the New York Times that he was not convinced that Mr Hussein posed an immediate threat. A strike against Iraq, the chancellor argued, would unsettle all of the Middle East, destroy the international coalition against terror built up after September 11th, and perhaps even push the Iraqi dictator into the very rapprochement with Islamic extremists that the United States fears. Moreover, he says there has been no American effort to analyse the consequences of such an attack nor to plan any clear strategy thereafter.

He singled out what he claimed was America's “change of strategy” at the end of August, when the vice-president, Dick Cheney, said that the Americans' aim was to overthrow Mr Hussein, not just to get the UN's weapons inspectors back in. “How can you exert pressure on someone by telling them that, even if you accept our demands, we will destroy you?” he aske'd. He was miffed, too, by lack of consultation. “It just isn't good enough to learn from the American press about a speech which clearly states: ‘We are going to do it, no matter what the world or our allies think'. That is no way to treat others,” he said.

Above all, Mr Schröder rejects America's claimed right to pre-emptive action against Iraq. On this score he is not alone among Europeans. France's president, Jacques Chirac, has called Mr Bush's doctrine “extremely dangerous”. German diplomats echo Mr Chirac's argument that other countries might demand a similar right to pre-emptive action: India against Pakistan, for example, or China against Taiwan. “A few principles and a little order are needed to run the affairs of the world,” Mr Chirac explained, to German nods of approval. But, unlike Germany, France has not ruled out the possibility that it might take part in a attack against Iraq, provided the UN approves.

Germany is the only member of NATO or the EU to have done so. Asked in a televised debate with Mr Stoiber last weekend whether he might change his mind about Iraq after Germany's election, Mr Schröder said categorically that he would not.

With his brash megaphone diplomacy, Mr Schröder seems to have painted himself into a corner from which it will be hard to unstick himself without looking silly. If the Americans do hit Iraq without German support but with Britain, France and others alongside, Germany could find itself summarily dismissed from its new hard-won place at the top table of nations.

Mr Stoiber, meanwhile, is still hedging his bets. He says he won't rule out “any options”, but at the same time says he does not want “any military measures and certainly not with German participation”. He, too, is mindful of votes. But once war begins, he is a lot more likely to fall into line behind the Americans. If Mr Schröder remains chancellor, he may have a hard time rebuilding the transatlantic bridge.